Google Ditches Side Column Ads: Search Marketing News

Among the biggest news that broke a few days ago was Google's adjustment to ditch side column ad placements in its search engine results. The change was initially just a speculation, but Google has now confirmed the change, and it's raising a lot of confusion and question, primarily to search marketers.

Usually, Google ads are shown on all over a page, i.e., top, bottom and right-hand position depending with the query, which now means that after this move, Google ads will now be shown at the top and/or the bottom of the page.

No More Side Column Ads in Google Search

According to a Search Engine Land post, Google AdWords, the company’s online advertising service, will now be displaying four ads just above organic search result and three additional ads below the search results. However, there are two exceptions, i.e. the PLA (Product Listing Ads) and ads in the knowledge panel which will still be utilizing the right-hand space.

What does this Move mean to search marketers, businesses, and users?

For normal users, there will be no much difference considering that PLAs and Knowledge panels will be utilizing the right-hand space. But for search marketer and businesses, there is a lot of speculation on what this might mean, with a lot of postulating that the top paid search is now going to be more expensive and that organic listing will be pushed further off the first SERP.

This decision from Google is commercially driven, and it would be naive to have a different perspective of the move. Their decision comes as a result of continuous testing, and this move is a way of Google trying to provide more relevant results for users and better performance for advertisers, but the question is at what cost?

Impact on Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

If you base your PPC advertising strategy on the law of supply and demands, it means that there will be many advertisers competing for fewer positions which mean that the AdWords auction will be more competitive, so expects CPCs (cost per conversion) to go up. If you are brands that value PPC impressions, then this is high time to adapt.

We are more likely going to see increased click through rates as a result of fewer ads and fewer distractions from users, which means, reviewing closely the CTR for your website is now not an option.

Final Thought

Google move to Ditch Side Column Ad Placements means that there is a lot that needs to be done by advertisers. Some may choose to diversify their advertising programs across channels to maintain CPC levels. While this is a sensible action, more focus should also be placed on better advertising moving forward.